There are ways to play them but you are correct, they may be more difficult than you imagine. Today's processor/memory speeds even the video cards are so advanced, that the games programming itself was never intended to be played on it. So you run into this the older the games get.

DOS BOX!!!!! I recently got a VERY old but great game running with it called "alternate reality" Recently my gf's kid got "dungeon keeper" which is old as shit too but is making a comeback and it apparently installs and uses dosbox.

This is probably a dumb question but here it goes.I bought, installed & authenticated windows 7 pro 64bit several years ago (2011 ish). because I built the pc myself, I purchased a OEM copy at a reduced rate, I think it was 129. No problems at all.

fast forward to today.I built a new PC recently and because I didn't want to buy win 8, I installed the win7 oem copy I mentioned above & entered the same software key as before. No problems, it was up and running like normal and how I expected. Today when I fired the pc up (for the first time in weeks) I get a message to authenticate the soft. Apparently I must have failed to do so when I installed it. But it's asking me to fork out 150 bucks. My long winded question is WTF for?My understanding is because it's a OEM builder licence of win7, I can install it on my own PC network for priviate purposes up to 6 times (or at least more than once). Am I wrong about this?Any help is appreciated.

This is probably a dumb question but here it goes.I bought, installed & authenticated windows 7 pro 64bit several years ago (2011 ish). because I built the pc myself, I purchased a OEM copy at a reduced rate, I think it was 129. No problems at all.

fast forward to today.I built a new PC recently and because I didn't want to buy win 8, I installed the win7 oem copy I mentioned above & entered the same software key as before. No problems, it was up and running like normal and how I expected. Today when I fired the pc up (for the first time in weeks) I get a message to authenticate the soft. Apparently I must have failed to do so when I installed it. But it's asking me to fork out 150 bucks. My long winded question is WTF for?My understanding is because it's a OEM builder licence of win7, I can install it on my own PC network for priviate purposes up to 6 times (or at least more than once). Am I wrong about this?Any help is appreciated.

Can you email microsoft and tell them your motherboard burned out? They should give you a reactivation.

This is probably a dumb question but here it goes.I bought, installed & authenticated windows 7 pro 64bit several years ago (2011 ish). because I built the pc myself, I purchased a OEM copy at a reduced rate, I think it was 129. No problems at all.

fast forward to today.I built a new PC recently and because I didn't want to buy win 8, I installed the win7 oem copy I mentioned above & entered the same software key as before. No problems, it was up and running like normal and how I expected. Today when I fired the pc up (for the first time in weeks) I get a message to authenticate the soft. Apparently I must have failed to do so when I installed it. But it's asking me to fork out 150 bucks. My long winded question is WTF for?My understanding is because it's a OEM builder licence of win7, I can install it on my own PC network for priviate purposes up to 6 times (or at least more than once). Am I wrong about this?Any help is appreciated.

because it was previously activated, you have to call microsoft.the activation dialog box will give a phone number if you try and activate it over the internet.it used to be $micro$oft would forget about the internet activation after 3-4 months and you could reactivate over the internet. well $micro$oft is so paranoid about piracy that they now remember forever it seems. they will probably refuse to activate xp at all in the near future.[rant]as far as i go i figure that if i actually buy the software , it should just work after installation, with no further hassle involved. i should not be asked to register it activate it or do anything except use it as intended. it seems that $micro$oft (and many others) spend alot of time on "copyright enforcement" (and patent trolling each other) and not enough time improving their software. it seems more often than not really dumb ideas make it into their software (metro on the desktop? WTF $micro$oft, SSL certificates being ignored in IOS and OSX WTF apple, and in classic fashion, "our customers are to dumb to be trusted with root access on their mobile devices, so we will be helpful and lock the suckers down so they cant change over the our competition and retain this device and/or we will stop providing updates for our stupid custom android rom after 6 months to force the stupid customer to upgrade into a new device/contract" WTF mobile phone companies ). [/rant]

Can you email microsoft and tell them your motherboard burned out? They should give you a reactivation.

It used to be 10 times, wtf microsoft.

I remember when you could install a windows OS OEM builders licences many times after buying a single copy. OEM is for private computer builders who sell new PC they build. But, I don't sell PC's.Every 4 or 5 years I will buy a new MB and build a new PC. I've been doing this for more than 15 years. I flat out refuse to waste hundreds of dollars on pre-built crap with phone support plans, which I never need.Everytime I build a new system, I am shocked at how much things have changed in only few years. Hardware has become much easier with plug and play yatta yatta, but the OS/software licensing side is a fucking nightmare.

I considered contacting MS to tell them my MB burned out, to get another activiation code, but I'm concerned the original OS install on my main studio cpu might be deactivated. which I can not afford to have that PC go down or have activation issues.

I did some research and apparently I was wrong about the number of OEM win7 pro you can run. The software key is linked to the first MB you install & authenticate it on. they say that you can not transfer or run 2 copies of it on 2 different motherboards. they will issue a reactiviation code if the original MB is damaged or needs to be replaced.but you cannot run two copies at the same time.

I'd like to be able to buy a OS and have the ability to install it however many times I want.but MS wants FULL RETAIL PRICE to grant me another licence..

because it was previously activated, you have to call microsoft.the activation dialog box will give a phone number if you try and activate it over the internet.it used to be $micro$oft would forget about the internet activation after 3-4 months and you could reactivate over the internet. well $micro$oft is so paranoid about piracy that they now remember forever it seems. they will probably refuse to activate xp at all in the near future.[rant]as far as i go i figure that if i actually buy the software , it should just work after installation, with no further hassle involved. i should not be asked to register it activate it or do anything except use it as intended. it seems that $micro$oft (and many others) spend alot of time on "copyright enforcement" (and patent trolling each other) and not enough time improving their software. it seems more often than not really dumb ideas make it into their software (metro on the desktop? WTF $micro$oft, SSL certificates being ignored in IOS and OSX WTF apple, and in classic fashion, "our customers are to dumb to be trusted with root access on their mobile devices, so we will be helpful and lock the suckers down so they cant change over the our competition and retain this device and/or we will stop providing updates for our stupid custom android rom after 6 months to force the stupid customer to upgrade into a new device/contract" WTF mobile phone companies ). [/rant]

amen to that brother!They are turning us into slaves."follow the prompts and do what you are told, we have your credit card on file & will charge you whatever we want."FRUSTRATED!!

amen to that brother!They are turning us into slaves."follow the prompts and do what you are told, we have your credit card on file & will charge you whatever we want."FRUSTRATED!!

What really fucking sucks about Microsoft is that they keep your card on file for Xbox Live and keep charging you. The only way I can find to stop them is to give them a card that's about to expire, let it expire and don't give them a new one. I will never give them a card # again - from now on it's just bing rewards to pay for the gold account when I need to play with friends, and points cards purchased elsewhere.

What really fucking sucks about Microsoft is that they keep your card on file for Xbox Live and keep charging you. The only way I can find to stop them is to give them a card that's about to expire, let it expire and don't give them a new one. I will never give them a card # again - from now on it's just bing rewards to pay for the gold account when I need to play with friends, and points cards purchased elsewhere.

1-800-4-my-xbox - they'll try and talk you out of it but they cannot prevent you from cancelling. I have been on xbox live for 10 years now. I don't particularly like that gold account is required for the netflix and party chatting and shit like that but at the then 49.99 a YEAR and now 59.99 a year it's an easily justifiable cost for the entertainment i've had over these years. I have thoroughly enjoyed my time spent playing games on there. I admit I am winding down on my console game playing, but still enjoy seeing new games that may peak my interest. I also agree, I don't like the company holding the keys to the servers and being able to shut them off whenever they feel like it. However, by the time they've usually done that, I've fallen in line with their polling numbers, and have generally moved on to another game.

I don't mind paying for it if I'm using it, but the netflix thing is a joke, and that was all I was using the service for in the last 6 months. I bought a cheap refurbed roku for netflix and amazon, and then I'll just do a month subscription if/when my friends are available to play, which is usually during the summer months. Bing gives away xbox live monthly passes for 670ish points, which is pretty easy to attain in about a month and a half when you use a greasemonkey script. Thanks for the 800 number though, that might come in handy in the future.

The i(-2) is the fastest of them all. It uses the new irrational ASIC circuit that can calculate the inverse square of each logic gate pathway. A completely new way to think about processing power. When they finish the onboard GPU for it, you will be able to see into the 4th dimension.

This might be useful - a line directly to Microsoft support. It was given to a local radio host after he battled with them online for hours. He says it goes directly to the help center, and that the person who answers actually speaks English as a first language.Microsoft Customer Help Line 866-672-4551

What really fucking sucks about Microsoft is that they keep your card on file for Xbox Live and keep charging you. The only way I can find to stop them is to give them a card that's about to expire, let it expire and don't give them a new one. I will never give them a card # again - from now on it's just bing rewards to pay for the gold account when I need to play with friends, and points cards purchased elsewhere.

luckly they don't have my CC # on account anymore, or do they? Years ago, when you had to actually pay an annual fee ($20) for a msn.com email account, they had my CC on file and would charge me every september. No problems. When I decided to drop msn email and switch to a free yahoo email, I stopped updating my experation date and stopped logging in to the account, thinking they would no longer have the required infomation about my card and the account would be terminated. Several years later I noticed a $20 charge on my bank statement from msn! WTF, I went back and checked my old statements and indeed every year, they chatged my card, even though I never gave them the new exp. date. I called them to cancel the email and asked how they were able to make several unauthorized charges to an expired CC. I never got a straight answer from her and she flat out refused to give me a refund for the past 3 or 4 years. I was able to cancel the account and any future charges. I don't know if my old msn email is still active, I don't care really, as long as they don't take my money.

The only way they could have gotten the info was when I signed up for a free month of xbox live. I think they required a CC to sign up initially, even though I only used xbox live for 2 or 3 weeks & cancelled it before they charged me. I'm not sure of the sequence of events regarding my xbox live account, but it's the only other way I can think of, other than msn trying random exp. dates untill the charge went through. IDK.

I was young and stupid and decided to let it go because it wasn't alot of money. Lesson learned. Now I'm older and stupid but, I simply can't trust MS and will never give them my CC or debt card again if I can help it.Very unsettling.

I called the number Steelbot gave today and was able to get them to stop trying to charge my card. Without fail they've been trying for the last couple of months every week. The gal who answered the phone was an american, and she helped me out right away. I was surprised how easily she took care of the problem. From now on, if I have to give M$ any money, they're getting it through points cards. I'll never give them my credit card again.

The i(-2) is the fastest of them all. It uses the new irrational ASIC circuit that can calculate the inverse square of each logic gate pathway. A completely new way to think about processing power. When they finish the onboard GPU for it, you will be able to see into the 4th dimension.

Always seems that however fast hardware can get, the next version of Windows can gum it up again. I sit at my quad-core i7 whatever blazing speed with 16Gb mem and wonder why the hell does Excel take so long to load, just like it did in the 90's.

Always seems that however fast hardware can get, the next version of Windows can gum it up again. I sit at my quad-core i7 whatever blazing speed with 16Gb mem and wonder why the hell does Excel take so long to load, just like it did in the 90's.

LOL. I think it has more to do with hard drive speeds, unless you're running an SSD? But yes, office is bloated. I run Office 2000 still.. does everything I need and doesn't cost me anything more than the purchase price 14 years ago.

Always seems that however fast hardware can get, the next version of Windows can gum it up again. I sit at my quad-core i7 whatever blazing speed with 16Gb mem and wonder why the hell does Excel take so long to load, just like it did in the 90's.

that because ard drive speed (spinning disk) hasnt increased appreciably since the 90's . yes you could setup a raid 0 with 3 or 4 disks and increase speed that way. but if you want fast loading times get an ssd drive. they almost can fill the sata 6 bus speed (6gb/sec) wise, while spinning rust tops out at 150MB/sec (and then only for a very short period of time). my setup is the following: 3 wd blues in a raid 0 speak ~380MB/sec (consistantly) current test is Timing buffered disk reads: 1158 MB in 3.00 seconds = 385.99 MB/sec1 samsung 2TB drive (backup purposes) 150MB/sec (drops off to 120 MB/sec during testing) Timing buffered disk reads: 252 MB in 3.00 seconds = 83.93 MB/sec (disk is in use)1 chronos ssd drive Timing buffered disk reads: 750 MB in 3.00 seconds = 249.96 MB/sec (disk is in use as well)

note: the other speeds i posted were from a live cd ,so the disks would not be in use.

that because ard drive speed (spinning disk) hasnt increased appreciably since the 90's . yes you could setup a raid 0 with 3 or 4 disks and increase speed that way. but if you want fast loading times get an ssd drive...

Thanks actually for the SSD tip guys - I am still using the old-fashioned kind. Maybe it's time to upgrade at least my system drive.